Tangled In The Strings
by Miss Meggie
Summary: They said no strings attached but Jemma finds she is tangled in them anyway. The revelation comes at the worst possible moment. For Ward x Simmons Summer Prompt: Colors. Also an Academy Fic


Jemma is a highly practical person very comfortable with her own sexuality and the attention she garner's from her looks and intelligence. As comfortable as she is most people are not. They see her as this virginal girl not to be touched.

This makes being attracted to Trip maddening. It is a well-known fact throughout the academy he will not date someone who is in his words "Inexperienced and likely to become too attached."

It's an archaic view point she'd take him to task for if his smile didn't melt her resolve very bloody time.

She finds a solution. Grant Ward.

She finds him at the bar that sits between both campuses. Tubby's is dingy and has little to speak of in the way of entertainment but for a few billiard tables and dart boards. She finds Grant where she always does when nursing Kara Palamas related wounds. Sitting on the far stool.

"What'd she do now?"

"Nothing." He swigged his beer.

"And I'm the Princess of Wales… We both know nothing means something. "She replies taking the stool opposite him.

"Don't wanna talk about it. She can't make up her goddamn mind to save her life I should just move on." He swigs again and sits the bottle down.

"Why don't you? Move on I mean?"

He looks away from the hole he's staring into the bar top and up into her eyes. "You know I don't like people."

"That is sadly true. I have an idea."

He gives her a suddenly playful smile. "Oh shit you know how I feel about the "I" word."

"Just hear me out."

"Alright." He said lifting the bottle to his lips for another pull.

"I think we should have sex."

He chokes on his beer laughingly. "Jesus Jem… let me guess for science?"

She shakes head blushing just slightly. "No, it'd be mutually beneficial."

"Of that I have no doubt but aren't you into that smiley fucker Triplett?" He clarifies.

"Well yes, but he refuses to date a virgin. For whatever morally responsible reason and you need to get over her for a final time. I think some no strings attached sex between friends could be what we need."

"How do you know I'm attracted to you?" He counters.

"The same way you know I find you physically appealing." She retorts.

He cocks his head at her thoughtfully. "Things might change between us. I like being your friend Jem."

"I promise I'll still be your friend if the shag is absolute shit."

He smirked at her around his beer bottle. "You're going to pay for that one Jem…"

"In what form? Orgasms ?" She teases him.

He chuckled. "Did you hit your head Jemma?" He sits the now empty beer bottle down.

"No, I'm simply tired of being treated like a child. I'm a woman I intend to be seen that way."

He got up from the stool and stood before her. He tipped her chin up and planted a soft kiss on her mouth. "In that case…I'll make you beg for it."

-/-/-

She goes a few weeks without hearing from him. She hopes he's simply busy and she hasn't ruined a friendship with her silly proposal.

She is beginning to think she's done just that up until he knocks on her door. He stands opposite her a bit dirty, there's a half healed cut on his cheek and he's quite sweaty but she finds she likes it.

"Hello Grant."

"Hey Jemma, you still wanna have sex?"

"Excuse me? What'd I miss?" she hears her flat mate Bobbi Morse ask. She promptly ignores her.

"I thought you didn't fancy the idea after all."

He shrugs. "Was busy… now I'm not." He ducks down and kisses her. This kiss has none of the gentle chasteness of the last one. This one is heated and the intent behind it crystal clear.

She should have kissed him much sooner she thinks distantly as the instinct to kiss him back takes over.

"You're gonna need to tell your friend to go away." He said tightly against her lips. "Something tells me you're a screamer." He teases and she bites his bottom lip in retaliation.

Bobbi merely gives her an arched brow and a smirk as she leaves.

No sooner than she has the door closed and locked behind Bobbi he has her turned and pressed against it. He's pressing hurried kisses into her neck.

"Why're you so ebulliently amorous all of the sudden?" She asks curiously.

He stops and looks at her discontinuing his hands from their quick slide up the back of her tank top to settle at the base of her spine. "Post mission buzz." He answers kissing her on the mouth. "Sorry." He says as though he has just remembered it will be her first time.

He focuses all his energy on kissing her. Deep, long kisses as though he was drowning and she was air. He kisses her so long and so thoroughly she feels drugged and loose limbed. He just keeps kissing her and his hands are everywhere stroking up and down her back. Pulling out her ponytail and knotting them in her hair.

She loves it; it could become a real issue if she lets it. She wants more and she definitely wants his very talented mouth in other places. She shoves him gently and regretfully away.

"The bedroom…" She prompts and he gives her a smile that somehow seems love struck yet still totally confident.

"Lead the way Jem…" and so she does.

She leads him down the hall and he is walking behind her step for step kissing her neck and shoulders. The hand he has looped around her waist slips down the front of her yoga pants to cup her center. His fingers slide in gently and set a languid pace. The heel of his hand barely brushes her clit with each stroke. It's almost enough to get her off but not quite… She whimpers without the conscious thought to do so.

"Patience baby, I'll get you there." He promises. The ease with which he calls her baby she should be distressing but it isn't. It's comforting.

They finally make it too the bedroom she collapses bonelessly on to the bed.

He undresses her slowly and the way his eyes skim along her body. Hot and possessive is almost more intimate than the thing they're doing.

She slides between the sheets the fabric cool on her bare skin. She watches him undress in open interest. None of his usual meticulousness is present; He's stripping and doing so quickly. It leaves little time for admiration of his damn near perfect form.

Well if he won't let her look she is most certainly going to touch. She trails her down his back as they go back to kissing. Sometime later she can feel the length of him pressed into her belly. She breaks the kiss. "If you don't want to Jemma…" He says his ragged breath fanning her face,

"I want to; we just…condoms are in the top drawer. She nods to the night stand. He jerks open the drawer and takes one out ripping the wrapping with his teeth. He puts it on.

She takes a deep breath when she feels him at her entrance. "Don't hold your breath I'm not going to hurt you," he promises and she exhales as he shoves inward in one motion there is a sharp pinching feeling but it fades. "You okay?" he asks. And she may love him just a bit right then. She feels stretched and full but okay.

"Fine love, moving might feel nice…"

He gives her one of those mercurial smiles. "You cheeky little thing. It'll be better than nice." He retorts. He sets a gentle pace.

She gets lost in the feelings he creates in her. The friction and pressure of their bodies create. The softness of his lips as they kiss long her jawline the sharpness of his teeth as they occasionally nip here and there. The strength in his hands bracketing her hips.

That undefinable something between them that had been building to an almost unbearable tension from the first kiss. She loses track of time and she knows she's getting close to climax. At one particularly inventive roll of his hips she does in fact scream… She screams his name but refuses to give it any thought. He chuckles deeply into her hair.

"Knew it…" He says kissing a line from her forehead down her nose to her mouth.

"Conceited…" The word falls into his mouth.

He shoves himself up on to his hands higher to go deeper. She can't breathe its right there and she can't reach it. "It'll grow on you Baby…" He retorts voice tight. He reaches between their bodies to touch her again. Flicking and pressing on her clit while alternating between strokes into her body.

She comes apart with frightening intensity. The edges of vision gray as she arches up keening. He follows suit shortly after.

"Damn…" he murmurs into her.

"Is it always like that?" she asks in honest wonderment because if it is she'll become a sex fiend.

He laughs loud and happy. "I think it depends on the lover Jem."

She cuddles down into him to sleep his heartbeat puts her out like a light.

When she wakes he is gone. As she redresses and goes to put her hair up again she soon realizes he still has the neon green hair tie looped around his wrist. "Well I said no strings but nothing about trophies."

She goes to remove the customary purple tie from the door giving Bobbi clearance to return.

-/-/-

The next time they have sex it's at three am in the deserted laundry room. It's quick and dirty and rough he takes her from behind with her leaning on a rickety dryer for support. Something is definitely wrong but she has no clue what it is and every intention she has to ask is forgotten as he kisses her as though she's made of spun glass after they're through.

The red lipstick she'd been giving a go recently leave his lips stained cherry red. He makes no move to wipe it away. "Until next time baby." He gives her a halfhearted grin.

-/-/-

She finds out what was bothering him a few weeks later. And she has to drag it out of him; she shoves him away when the intensity of his kiss almost bowls her over. "Grant tell me what is wrong or we stop right now!"

"John is dying Jemma. "

The way he blurts out this revelation gives her pause. "Come again I thought you just said your SO was dying."

"I did, and I will tell you all about it after but right now I need you." He pleads with a dark sadness in his eyes she'd do anything to be rid of including push away her curious nature for sublimating your problems with sex.

"Okay." She relents and this kiss is much more gentle than the last. The sex this time is slow and drawn out. He does in fact make her beg not that she minds. He may be the only lover she has had but he is an excellent one at that.

He leaves no part of her body unattended too. Afterwards she finds plenty of love marks will have to hide and her muscles are sore and she feels herself floating on the edge of sleep as she lay literally on top of him.

She thinks maybe the slow and easy sex had been a way to avoid her questions.

His fingers trail lazily up her arm and back down. He never stays for post sex cuddles but she'll take what she get. She thinks he just might need the tactile sense of human contact their agreement allows a little more than she does at this point. "So John?" She starts off.

"Is dying." He reiterates into her hair.

She leans up to look at him. "How? Why? Can I help?" she asks and he looks at her as though he is taking stock of her and she finds herself desperately hoping she doesn't fall short.

"Can I trust you Jemma?" He asks twining his hands in her hair as he sometimes does…it's becoming habitual their casual touching and the casual sex that suddenly isn't all that casual.

"Of course you can Grant."

"Hydra still exists within SHIELD itself. When John was on a mission for SHIELD they left him for dead. Hydra offered him a way to live but it was risky and experimental."

"How experimental? What did they do? Did you befriend me to turn me to his cause?" She sits up and scurries to the foot of the bed.

"I- God no Jem, me and you? It was my choice. I wanted you…When I chose you for my tutor in explosive creations it was because you were the best. I became you friend because god fucking help me Jemma I like you."

"And the sex?"

"Has been the most fun and satisfying thing of I've done in a long while but I understand if my alliances change things."

"Can I think it over a bit?'

"Of course and in the meantime could you come back over here…you look cold." the ease with which she falls back into his alarming but she can't stop herself.

-/-/-

In the meantime Jemma goes back to her initial plan of trying to date Trip. Her thoughts always circle back to Grant. She has so many questions. Fitz thinks her distraction is related to her crush on Trip. Jemma doesn't correct him.

Dating Trip is fun but they're both so focused on their studies they have little time for one another.

Every time she kisses Trip, Grant is the one flashing behind her eyelids. She tries to put it off as nerves or guilt or left over sexual tension but she finds herself wanting to spend her time with Grant to talk over her day and ask him how John is loyalties aside she likes John.

-/-

She realizes she is in love with Grant at the worst possible time. She's making out with Trip and his hands under her shirt and he is working on a hickey on her neck. There is even the sex warning on the door for Bobbi but all she can see, hear, feel, taste, smell is Grant.

And doesn't that just fuck up her carefully practical plan. "Oh bloody fucking hell…." She mutters and Trip backs off to look at her warily. She covers her face not daring to look at him. "I'm in love with Ward." She confesses from behind her hands.

Trip disentangles from her and he doesn't look hurt by her words so much as confused. "I didn't mean for it to happen honestly." She apologizes.

They sit in silent a bit before she straightens his clothes and gets to his feet. "Just be happy Simmons," is their ending before anything even began.

-/-

She gives her revelation a few weeks to sink in. She decides to keep the Hydra thing to herself because no one will believe her anyway and it will only stand to hurt Grant. It will get him kicked out of SHIELD and she is pretty sure it's the only thing he really has.

She could join him in helping Garrett if she doesn't have to do anything immoral and will be allowed to stick strictly to the sciences. That's assuming Grant wants her at all that's assuming he loves her back.

-/-/-

She finds him where this whole no strings thing began at Tubby's this time he sits at a table the red and blue of the neon flickering open sign reflects back into his dark hair.

She sits down across from him and she can feel the way his eyes travel up her legs as she crosses them. She doesn't acknowledge the way it feels either. She snags his beer and takes a fortifying swing and dives in. "I'm in love with you and I realize…"

"Me too…"

"It's dreadfully inconvenient given we may well end up on…." She forges on ignoring him she needs to get this out all at once.

"Separate sides? Yes I know but it may not even be an issue in our lifetime…" He adds but she just keeps steam rolling.

"Right, yes anyway, if I can without dirtying my hands too much morally speaking I'd like to help Garrett he is a nice enough fellow. I won't out you even if you don't love me in return. That's just petty and I'm not petty… if I ever seek vengeance it will never be petty…."

He laughs and it pulls her from her monologue. "It'll be smart yeah baby, I know that. Did you not hear me? I said I love you too…if you'll have me I want all the strings. I want every messy complication in the book if it means I get you. If it means you're the one I go to bed with, the one I wake up with then I don't care how hard it is I want it."

"You do?"

"I do." He grins at her.

"Good. I tried to have sex with Trip and it was dreadful. I mean not totally but enough that I know it wasn't enough for me. You've bloody ruined me Grant."

"Have I?" He leans in grin fading to a familiar smirk.

"I'm a cliché you asshole stop smirking at me."

"You gonna slap me or kiss me?" he teases her cracking his gum. "I'm cool with either." He points to the Billiard table behind them. "Never done it on a pool table before. You could be one of my firsts." His eye brows wiggle suggestively and she suppresses a laugh as she leans forward to kiss him.

-/-/-/

They have been living together for a few months and she is rifling through his desk to find the subject parameters for the Centipede Project when she finds his junk drawer.

On closer inspection she finds things she'd lost or so she thought. A green hair tie, a red tube of lipstick, a blue and orange striped popcorn bag from their first official date, a pink love note she'd written him on his first long term mission, her favorite purple scarf…. The bastard she'd been looking for that scarf for months it was Chanel.

He clears his throat and she looks up guiltily. "You have a keepsake box?"

"I do. John says its bad idea to form any sort of emotional attachment."

"And you don't think that?"

"I think John has never been in love with anyone the way I love you and he has no idea how it can color your life in ways you'd never expect. I keep that so that I never become so black and white that I lose you." He says looking down on her with tenderness in his eyes.

"Couldn't even if you tried." She gets to her feet and crosses to where he sits on the foot of the bed. "Have you seen the papers detailing the specs for Centipede subjects?"

He pulls her down into his lap and then rolls her beneath him. "Worry about that later. How about we revisit our beginning?"

"For what reason?"

"Science baby, I'm in it for the science."

It's an awful line but it makes her laugh.

In the end she is so glad Trip doesn't sleep with virgins. She has no idea where she'd be without that asinine rule of his.

AN: I own nothing I hope you liked it.


End file.
